Our next day took us through some very good villages where people waved lots and tractor drivers beeped at us. I think it was friendly. We went through Avignon with lots of cypress trees, and Chateau-Neuf-du-Pape where we watched farmers doing whatever it is they do to their vines.

We ended up stopping for a real French cafe experience and accidentally stumbled into a historic walled village of some sort where harrassed-looking teachers showed city kids round, and it all looked very old and pretty, except for the enormous metal grilles on the front doors.

It all started getting very southern-looking, with a bright blue sky, and slightly scrubbeir vegetation, and we decided to head for Arles. Our route took us through miles and miles of marshland, sort of wilderness-looking, and a couple of strange skeggy towns with mechanics sat around outside cafes looking mean. We came into Arles, on the coast, expecting great things, and it was about 8pm when we arrived. It was getting dark, and was similar to arriving in Birkenhead, with scallies in bad tracksuits with shaved heads looking at us menacingly. Therre was a camping sign pointing to a nasty-looking gravel carpark where the wind rushed across the marsh to hit you in the face in a not very polite manner, and some people in campervans had set up home there, possibly permanently. I had a wee in a dilapidated bus-shelter with 2 walls and broken bottles all over the floor, and we tried to stick the tent pegs into the gravelled concrete, holding the tent in one hand to stop the wind stealing it. We gave up.

After heading back across the marsh for an hour, away from the scary thugs, we ended up hiding next to a farmers field on some boggy marshland, and despite the farmer being 10 feet away managed to avoid detection. We ate our emergency pasta rations and bemoaned our fate.